Wicked Nights by Anne Marsh

define the word partners for you?”
    He reached the Feelin’ Free in a few swift strokes, the muscles in his arms flexing as he pulled himself
    out of the water. Water ran down his chest and over the muscles of his abdomen. How was any woman
    supposed to ignore all the gorgeousness? Piper herself lacked the willpower. Her brain was too busy trying
    to imagine him in one of those barely there Speedos favored by the island’s European guests. She’d bet it
    would be a good look for him. Almost as good as the wet look.
    He popped his fins off. “The deal was we worked together.”
    “Which is why you’re making yourself at home on my dive boat?”
    She yanked her zipper up on her wet suit. She shouldn’t be looking at him. So what if he’d turned into
    a hottie sometime between the age of ten and thirty? He was still Cal, the eternal pain in her butt and the
    man who thought he could snag the contract she’d worked so hard for.
    “You told me to be here,” he pointed out, all Mr. Logic.
    “At the slip in the marina.” She slapped her dive harness on. “Thirty minutes ago.”
    “You didn’t wait for me.” Now he sounded amused.
    “You were late.”
    The amused crinkles at the corners of his eyes said he wasn’t so sure. “Did you time me?”
    Carla snorted behind her but kept her mouth shut. Wise woman.
    “You’re not in charge, Piper,” he said softly.
    “Neither are you.” Finished gearing up, she switched her attention—or as much of it as she could, at any
    rate—to checking the gauges on the steel tanks.
    He shrugged. “We have to figure this out.”
    He sounded so calm. So logical. While she, on the other hand, wanted to knock him overboard with
    one of the dive tanks. He’d been like that for as long as she could remember, always the golden boy, so
    responsible and mature.
    “You coming in?” She made a show of checking his boat. “Oh. Too bad. You seem to be missing a dive
    buddy. I guess I’ll have to get started without you.”
    He grinned. “Ladies first. I thought we’d established that.”
    Dive checks complete, she rolled backward over the side of the boat, keeping a hand on her mask.
    Knees up, she floated to the surface and flashed Carla the okay sign.

    * * *
AS SOON AS Carla entered the water, Piper bent at the waist, then drove her arms over her head,
    straightening her legs as she stroked downward with her arms. Her fins flashed briefly and then she slipped
    beneath the surface. No splash. Just here and then gone. Damn if that wasn’t Piper all over again.
    She was a force of nature.
    She’d also made it perfectly clear how she felt about working with him. He didn’t know how he felt
    about it himself, but it was a prerequisite for winning the Fiesta contract, so he’d do it.
    He eyeballed the water. Recreational diving had nothing on combat diving. He’d led covert missions to
    scope enemy beaches and catalog the ocean floor for natural obstacles and land mines that might impede
    the navy’s landing craft. Executed midnight rescue swims that had ended in gunfire. Rappelled out of
    choppers, and, yeah...there’d been one memorable occasion when he’d almost planted fins first on a shark
    in the Indian Ocean. A site like Rose Wall shouldn’t pose any problem.
    But...it did. The smooth surface taunted him. He didn’t want to get in and he definitely didn’t want to go
    under. If he couldn’t do it, however, he wouldn’t win the contract. And that was hardly the worst problem.
    Nope. Something in his head was broken beyond all repair, and yet he was under the gun to fix it.
    Piper’s shadow disappeared from his line of sight. The boat suddenly seemed a whole lot emptier now
    with her gone. Which was what he’d wanted, he reminded himself. He didn’t need an audience for this next
    part. He was a U.S. Navy SEAL: he got in the water and he went under and he did his job. All too often, life
    and death had ridden on the success of his ops. He’d spent his life